For a long time the chances of Sri Lankans getting their hands on either the latest bestseller or an extremely rare publication were near negligible if not non-existent. Most of our hope lay in high end bookshops which by chance would have the item we were looking for, but nothing really catered specifically to our needs. That was until www.books.lk came around and provided many people with a portal to access their desired works of literature or sources of information.
Established in September 2009, books.lk, now functions much the same as American online sales juggernaut Amazon.com, except perhaps on a smaller and more localized scale. Many of the volumes of books and educational material it offers are sourced from the US, UK and India in addition to several local book dealers.
Books.lk Business Development Manager, Jeneesa Omar, says the way the site operates is customers are either able to select from the long list of titles available on the website or provide a detailed request for a particular book, which the books.lk team more often than not is able to fulfill.
The site offers texts on a wide array of subjects, from fiction and non-fiction to lifestyle and music. “Books.lk was started by its Managing Director Sujan Dias who was a collector of books and a person who wanted to provide people with the means to get hold of books they were unable to find in the local market,” Jeneesa explains.
She adds that the number of requests handed in is constantly on the rise as are the figures of items purchases. Aside from books, the site also offers a selection of CDs, DVDs and Blue Ray Discs in a bid to further emulate its American predecessor. Janeesa says, however, there are future plans on books.lk’s horizon that are even more ambitious than anything Amazon can think up.
“Currently all of the books are available in English but we have plans to also include material in Sinhala, so as to cater to an even larger a group of customers.” |
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